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2011 Fishing Reports

This evening I took a short, 2 1/2 hour trip accompanied by my mom, Charlotte, who, besides being my mom, a godly woman, and dedicated school nurse, happens to make the BEST fried porkchops in the Western Hemisphere. Just thought I’d throw that in there!

We found a mix of keeper white bass and 14-16″ largemouths holding deep today and had consistent action on the slab.

Today was to see the last SW winds prior to a wind shift coming in overnight, so I was expecting good fishing this evening after nearly calm winds all morning. The forecast was for winds gusting up to 15mph, but we only had winds sustained up to 8-9 and tapering to near calm beginning around 4:45pm. As is often the case, the fish bit as the winds blew. We had light winds and a light bite. When the winds went to near zero, so did the fish activity.

We first contacted fish at Area 1006 at the deep base of an underwater point, right as the point’s slope flattened out. The bite was moderate but consistent for about 65 minutes. Over this period we boated 28 fish on 3/4 oz. TNT slabs in both solid white and in white/silver. We stayed within yards of this area for the duration of the trip, following the old saying, “You don’t leave fish to find fish!” — at least not with guests on board.

Two things of note tonight: 1) this is the first appreciable uptick I’ve seen this season on the presence of largemouth bass mixed in with white bass, and 2) this was the first time this season that I saw milt (semen) dripping from male white bass I boated. The largemouth bass were all very pale and acted the same when hooked in that they all just dragged in for about the first 5-7 feet of movement after being hooked and then began to fight, almost as if they were reluctant to do so. That’s pretty typical of cold water largemouth.

Nearly every trip between now and mid-March will involve a lot of vertical jigging. Regardless of the species you most prefer to fish for, this is the time to get well-practiced at vertical jigging. Winter offers a lot of opportunities to fish for abundant white bass, so, even if you are a black bass fisherman, the skills you’ll learn on a winter jigging trip with me will translate directly to success for other species. If you need a little coaching on this technique, consider booking a trip. It will be a good investment. Call me at 254-368-7411 and we’ll set something up!!

This morning I welcomed sisters Grace and Mattie H. of Friendswood, TX, aboard, accompanied by their grandfather, “Pepaw” D. The girls are both students at Texas A&M — Grace in her senior year and Mattie in her sophomore year.

Mattie got us off to a great start by landing the trip’s largest fish for our first fish of the trip, a 4.75 pound hybrid striped bass.

(L to R) Mattie, Pepaw D., and Grace all got the hang of vertical jigging and the fish cooperated until around 10:45 when our wind let up and the skies brightened.

As we got going this morning we spotted some bird activity but, as we got closer, we were disappointed to find that the birds (mostly terns) were feeding on shad that were at the surface feeding, not shad that were driven to the surface by gamefish.

We moved on continuing to look for birds but found none that led us to fish. We got lines in the water at a patch of water between Areas 691 and 437. At this time the winds were still light, so, we went with a downrigging approach to cover lots of water to strain out a few active fish from amongst a lot of inactive fish. We wound up boating 1 hybrid and 7 white bass, all on White Willow spoons, prior to the start of a S. wind. As we downrigged, I could see plenty of scatted, bottom-hugging fish in this area and thought it wise to stay here until some wind started to see if that would get these fish in gear.

As the wind began to ramp up, the fishing followed suit. We switched over to vertical jigging at this point and “hopped” here and there as I found small schools of fish congregated together in 19 to 27 feet throughout the area we had just downrigged over. Fish came in spurts as we moved and hovered, moved and hovered, and so on. We boated a total of 20 fish here via jigging, taking our tally to 28 by the time we left.

We next headed to Area 692 and found a solid school of white bass at 19-20 feet deep off the point here. We boated 7 fish in short order before the school shut down.

We next headed to Area 961, this time finding fish at 24-26 feet deep. We jigged these fish with the same 3/4 oz. TNT 180’s that we’d used all morning, and put another 6 fish (1 largemouth and 5 white bass) in the boat here. It was while we were fishing this area that the winds went nearly slack and we lost the last of our cloud cover. The fishing nosedived pretty quickly thereafter.

We tried one more time at Area 1000 and boated 2 small white bass. Sonar showed the fish returned to a bottom-hugging, scattered orientation, just as they had been when the bite was slow before the winds began at the beginning of our trip.

We were now at the tail end of the morning’s feeding bell curve and had a total of 43 fish to show for our morning’s efforts.

The girls had fished before at church camp and at a family outing to Port Mansfield years ago and retained a lot of skills, especially when it came to using spinning gear, so that really helped today. Winter fishing can be very productive when the weather is right, but the fishing is always more technical then in warm water conditions. Nearly every trip between now and mid-March will involved a lot of vertical jigging. Regardless of the species you most prefer to fish for, this is the time to get well-practiced at vertical jigging. Winter offers a lot of opportunities to fish for abundant white bass, so, even if you are a black bass fisherman, the skills you’ll learn on a winter jigging trip will translate directly to other species. If you need a little coaching on this technique, consider booking a trip. It will be a good investment.

TALLY = 43 FISH, all caught and released

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 11:15a

Air Temp: 41F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 53.0F.

Wind: Winds were light and southerly at launch time, building only to S5 by mid-morning, then tapering to S2-3 by trip’s end.

Skies: Skies were 70% cloudy at trip’s start clearing to fair and cloudless by 10:45a.

This morning I had the pleasure of fishing one-on-one with Steven D., originally of Ennis, TX, now making a new life with his young wife, Anne, in Belton, TX.

Steven holds one of 28 hybrid we landed today. This one came on a Kastmaster thrown long and fished shallow.

Steven turned the camera on me and clicked this this shot of one of the hybrid we got long-casting Kastmasters today.

Steven is a graduate of East Texas Baptist University where he earned his BA in. He is now both working and pursuing his Masters of Divinity through Truett Seminary at Baylor in Waco. Anne is a new public school teacher in Killeen. Prior to our trip this morning Steven had primarily fished for largemouth bass in farm ponds and other warmwater species in a few tributaries to the Trinity River up near Dallas.

As we got underway and awaited sunrise, we looked for some early morning near-surface action tipped off by birds, but found little that way.

We initially contacted fish shortly after sunrise at Area 211 in 17-22 feet, boating 18 white bass here. We used TNT180 slabs in 3/4 oz. in both silver and white. The fish were willing to hit if you put the slab near them, but not willing to move very far or very fast to pursue distant presentations. I controlled the boat very methodically so our presentations were truly vertical with no horizontal component at all.

From Area 211, we made our way over to Area 998 and fishing in 27-30 feet of water, again with slabs. Here, we initially found whites on the bottom, but, as we began pulling them in, some curious hybrid came in to inspect the commotion. These were located much higher in the water column, thus, we had to use sonar to get our presentations up to their level as they came riding in high. We boated 15 white bass and 2 keeper hybrid here before moving on. Most notable of these 17 fish was one really large white bass that Steven boated. It measured exactly 14 3/8 inches. If you fish Belton for white bass very much, you’ll appreciate that that is a quality fish for Belton Lake. I boat literally thousands of white bass from Belton and Stillhouse each year and can typically count on one hand the number of white bass coming out of Belton annually that reach this size. Nice fish!

As the bite tapered off, we cruised and observed. We spotted some near-surface action (BA:50T,2RBG) beginning off of Area 134. These fish consisted of a mixed bag of very aggressively feeding white bass and hybrid stripers pursuing threadfin shad approximately 2″ long. I first began trolling with an umbrella rig to figure out what we were dealing with. This landed us 2 hybrid and a nice white bass right away. As we trolled, I saw where the fish were orienting, and thought we could be more efficient by casting. Long story short, these fish pushed this bait from Area 134, clear across the lake to near Area 359, then back west toward the middle of the lake, then back south, with the action terminating near Area 099. All in all these fish covered over a mile in about 1 hour and 15 minutes, staying in the top 12 feet of the water column and regularly boiling at the surface thus giving their location away. We used 1 oz. Kastmaster spoons on long spinning rods to launch these baits well away from the boat as fish in this kind of situation can be very boat shy. Over the time this feeding spree lasted, we boated exactly 30 additional fish, including 26 hybrid ranging from 16 to 22 inches, and 4 white bass. One of these white bass Steven caught also went 14 3/8 inches, with even more girth than the other big white we boated at Area 998! Another nice fish!

TALLY = 65 FISH, all caught and released

If you’d like to book a trip, please just give me a call at 254-368-7411. If you like to “shop” a little first, please look over my website at www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com .

This evening I took a short 3 hour trip towards sunset as this afternoon brought with it the only bit of wind we were to have for the entire day.

I call these “stay in touch” trips where I go out by myself on days on which I don’t have bookings or when I’ve opted not to take clients (typically due to poor weather conditions). Typically, I’ll search areas where I think fish ought to be given the season and current weather conditions, and will then confirm or deny those suspicions either by running sonar over the areas looking for active fish in a feeding posture, or by actually setting up and fishing if fish are glued to the bottom.

Today I found fish at Area 942 and fished until I’d caught 6 and then moved to search for more fish after confirming that there was a strong congregation of fish here.

I next contacted fish at Area 74 (just to the NW of it) and boated an easy 12 fish. This was by far the most active bunch of fish I found of all the areas I searched.

Next, I contacted fish at Area 926, caught 10 and moved on to Area 232 where I boated 10 more and moved on.

My last success (as the wind tapered to calm near sunset) was at Area 1004 right on the break. I only boated 1 fish here, but had other very sluggish fish react to my bait as I followed it on the flasher, letting me know there was more than just a chance single fish here.

This morning I met up with long-time clients Mark L. and his 5th grade son, Garrison. The two were accompanied by grandpa “Gramps” Chet visiting from Canada. We fished on Belton Lake for a shot at some hybrid striped bass.

Mark and Garrison pose with Mark’s biggest fish ever caught!

(L to R) Chet, Garrison, and Mark all kept their jigging technique consistent and the white bass responded once the winds picked up.

Garrison was tickled about catch two fish at a time on the umbrella rig!!

Mark and I were back and forth by text and e-mail for about a week trying to nail down a good fishing day based on weather before settling on this time and date. With front after front coming down and no stability in the weather, the forecasters have a tough time getting it right more than a day or two out.

This morning’s starting conditions were tough, with clearing skies following a decent rain event the night before, and with near calm conditions.

Prior to our start this morning I watched birds work over Area 998 for about 15-20 minutes, but, by the time we got to them, the fish had dissipated.

We took advantage of the still low light levels around sunrise time and began searching shallow. We found fish between Areas 709 and 437, but after stopping to try slabbing for them 3 separate times and coming up with nothing, I decided we needed to downrig to get our baits in front of a lot of inactive fish hoping to find a few willing biters among them. We set up first with a silver Pet Spoon and a White Willow on separate ‘riggers. The White Willow seemed to get the nod from the fish, so, we changed both rods over to the White Willow. We just about wore a hole in the water between Areas 709 and 437, but picked up a fish on just about every pass, taking our tally up to 14 fish. Garrison was very curious about the umbrella rig that I had on board and have begun experimenting with, so, after boating a few fish for each person, we tied the umbrella rig on and began using it behind the downrigger. We caught 1 white bass on our first pass, then, to Garrison’s delight, we caught a double on our second pass (2 white bass). Later, Chet picked up a yellow cat as we ran the rig near bottom. In all, we boated 18 fish in about 2 hours’ time under these bright, windless conditions, all on downriggers.

Around 9:45, a westerly wind began to blow at around 6mph. I gave it about 15-20 minutes to see if it would be consistent, and it was. We made a move to Area 968/983 which was being impacted by this wind, and I found fish on sonar along the breakline here. We made a number of “short hops” all in this general vicinity along the break, and very quickly added 48 fish to our tally — all white bass, and most smallish, but the action was welcome and the fact that these fish responded to a slabbing technique was icing on the cake, especially with a youngster aboard.

Around noon this area had played out and we began to make our way back in. Since we got off to a slow start, I decided to extend the trip a bit, so we made one last stop at Area 1000. We found one very tightly bunched school of white bass here — so tightly bunched, in fact, that one side of the boat produced and one side did not (with boat width and rod length considered, that’s about 13 feet apart which goes to show how loathe fish are to move about when the feeding window shuts).

By 1pm or so we’d done all we were going to do and called it a day with exactly 73 fish boated including white bass, hybrid stripers (one of which was Mark’s largest fish ever caught to date), and a single yellow cat.

TALLY = 73 FISH, all caught and released

Start Time: 7:45a

End Time: 1:00p

Air Temp: 47F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 56.0F.

Wind: Winds were near calm at sunrise, with a marked increase to W6 from 10:00 to 12:00.

This evening I met up with long-time Killeen resident Charles B. Charles retired from the U.S. Army as a senior NCO and now works at the VA Hospital in Temple. He a good man with a heart for people who are hurting. We fished on Belton Lake because in all the time he’s lived in the area, he’d not been out on Belton before (and because I thought the fishing would be good today!).

Charles and I joked a bit about quantity (which we got tonight) versus quality (which, honestly, we didn’t) before I snapped this photo.

After about an hour’s break following the conclusion of my morning trip, I digested some lunch, neatened up the boat, and talked with Charles about our gameplan for the afternoon. I let him know it’d probably start off slow and build toward sunset.

We put 5 white bass in the boat at the very first place we stopped at after noticing a few terns looking “edgy” over top of Area 998.

After that action evaporated quickly, we spent a fishless hour or so searching under near-calm conditions finding a few fish on top of Area 211, which gave up 6 fish and then slacked off.

By around 3pm, a WNW wind began to push and slowly build up to around 9mph (the strongest wind of the day). The fish responded slowly but surely. We got on a few more fish (7 whites) at Area 960 but didn’t like the lack of bait here so we moved once again.

We headed to Area 302 after seeing some bottom-hugging sonar signatures and hovered above these fish while jigging for them. As soon as we let down we were fast into fish and the more we caught and the closer it got to sunset the harder the fish bit. We boated exactly 29 fish here before spotting some good-looking tern and gull action at Area 1001.

We made the move to Area 1001 and put a final 21 fish in the boat here as the fish put the feedbag on both in advance of dark and an approaching cold front. Interestingly, we didn’t pick up any hybrid amongst these fish, nor did the birds work over these fish with anywhere near the intensity with which the fish fed on bait here.

Every single fish we caught tonight was caught using a vertical jigging technique with a 3/4 oz. TNT slab. Occasionally, toward sunset, I through in an “easing” tactic and did get hit on that, but, by and large, the jigging stroke was the gamewinner tonight.

TALLY = 68 FISH

Start Time: 1:30p

End Time: 5:40p

Air Temp: 62F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: 56.0F.

Wind: Winds were near calm at start with a WNW wind picking up at 8-9 in the afternoon.

The S.K.I.F.F. (Soldiers’ Kids Involved in Fishing Fun) Program exists to take the children of deployed or deceased soldiers on fishing trips at no charge to the soldiers’ families as a way of showing our support for our troops and providing a respite for their spouses. The following is a note to SKIFF supporters about this most recent outing…

Monday, 19 Dec. 2011

Dear Austin Fly Fishers and Friends of SKIFF,

This morning I fished with 6 year old twins Kristian and Kevan Vaughn of Killeen, TX.

The boys reside with their grandparents, “Nana” Tina and “Pop Pops” Curtis Vaughn. Pop Pops is currently half a world away serving with the 615th Air Cavalry as a staff sergeant overseeing contractor operations based out of Camp Marmal in Afghanistan.

To say the boys were excited about this trip would be an understatement. In fact, there was no aspect of the trip that they weren’t very, very excited about. They liked the ride to the ramp, they liked launching the boat, they liked jigging, they liked downrigging, they liked retrieving the buoy, they liked the rain, they liked the wind, they liked the seagulls … !!

After I picked the boys up and as we made our way to the boat ramp, we spotted the lake for the first time and I pointed it out to the boys. They asked, “Is this water the salty kind or the other kind?” I told them that this was fresh water, the opposite of salt water. Kevan told me he was relieved because he knew

sharks and whales lived in the salty kind of water and he was kind of afraid of those.

The fishing was really good even though the weather was a bit tough. We had prefrontal conditions in advance of some violent weather that moved through later in the evening. The fish were feeding, the birds were showing us the way, and the boys caught fish … 25 of them to be exact, both by jigging near bottom and by downrigging.

We downrigged early for shallower, more active fish in 12-15′, and then transitioned to vertical jigging in deeper (~25-27′) water after the shallow bite went soft on us.

The potential was there for a more sizeable catch, but the jigging tactics we used were pretty technical for 6 year olds to stay consistent on due to the extreme importance of depth control, so we missed a few opportunities, but that’s to be expected with kids onboard. The boys caught their own fish by their own efforts and did the best they could and were rewarded for that with the 25 fish we did catch.

I told the boys at the beginning of the trip that we’d save the first two fish we caught in the livewell and would then cull when we caught larger ones so we’d have the two biggest fish at the end of the trip to take pictures with. As Kristian brought in his 6th or 7th fish, I saw it was a good bit bigger than the 10 or 11 inchers we’d already boated. As it came over the side I exclaimed, “Wow, that’s a big one!” Kristian asked “Is it too big?” I assured him that no fish was ever too big and pointed out that more experienced fisherman never asked that question. I then winked at him, and he understood me completely.

Thank you all for your support, and thank you, too, for including Rebecca and I in the invitation to the AFF Christmas Party. As you see, I’ve already begun squeezing the luck out of the red AFF hat I won at the drawing!! Merry Christmas to each of you.

I got the following unfortunate message from Jeff Warren and wanted to pass this along to help him out …

Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 1:02 PM

Subject: Salado Creek Outfitters: Store Closing Sale

It is with regret that I notify you of our decision to close Salado Creek Outfitters. The drought and heat this summer took a real toll on our business and we have decided to close the store.

We have a huge selection of all types of sporting goods that we are offering at 50% off during this time. We have an especially good selection of Salado Eagles merchandise at these sale prices. Please come in and take advantage of this offer and help us liquidate our inventory.

I postponed a trip this morning with a father-daughter pair from Austin as wet cold front conditions typically bode poorly. Regardless, I headed out to use the time to experiment with an umbrella rig.

The suspect cars are seen here on the far right side of the right hand screen.

This is a zoomed and cropped outtake from the screen shot above to enhance the details.

As I cruised around looking for signs of life, I saw some terns diving in an area I thought too shallow for white bass. As I motored in, I saw that loons were pushing and chasing bait up shallow, thus causing all the ruckus. However, as I motored along I was surprised to see on sonar what appeared to be at least one, and possibly two, submerged vehicles. I took several screen shots with my Lowrance HDS-10 sonar unit, saved the GPS coordinates, and later reported this to TPWD and the Bell Co. Sheriff’s Department.

Well, after that excitement, I headed to Area and found fish tight to the breakline’s slope here. I jigged for them to check on their presence, identity, and activity level. I put 20 white bass in the boat as I worked my way along the face of the breakline to see how far east and west the activity extended. Once that was determined, I dropped buoys and then began the experiment with my umbrella rig.

Long story short, I was quite pleased with the potential this rig has and look forward to tinkering and adjusting all the variables to make sure I know exactly where the rig is in the water column. One immediately apparent lesson taken away was the fishes’ preference for that center, “straggler” bait. Of the 8 white bass I caught on the umbrella rig, 7 of them came on that center straggler bait.

Like his other 6 buddies, this white bass fell for the bait furthest back in the set of 5 on this umbrella rig.

Fishing will continue to rise and fall with frontal activity with pre-frontal action being the best of all scenarios.

If you’re reading this and are contemplating a holiday fishing trip, please don’t delay in getting that on the books. The week before Christmas is now booked, but there are a few half-days remaining during the week between Christmas and New Year.

Also, remember I do have gift certificates available.

I’m at:

Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

TALLY = 28 FISH, all caught and released.

Start Time: 8:00a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp: 53F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~56.2F

Wind: Winds were NNW3.

Skies: Skies were greyed over the entire trip with a light rain beginning to fall at trip’s end.

I fished a full day trip today with Doug B. of Killeen. Like many fellows I take out, Doug has a good bit of fishing experience, a boat, and sonar, but has had trouble bringing all of those to bear to produce any amount of consistency.

Doug and I encountered steady fishing all day long today boating hybrid stripers of all sizes, white bass of all sizes, largemouth bass, and even a flathead catfish.

That’s me with our “token” catfish. A 4.75 pound beady-eyed yellow cat that decided a jigging spoon was too good to pass up.

Doug was great company – easy-going, lots of stories, and willing to listen and learn. We got to talk about fishing in Canada, fishing the coast, politics, agriculture, construction, God, kids, trucks, and more, but not necessarily in that order!

As we fished today we also specifically worked on sonar use and interpretation, and understanding lake-bottom topography.

With abundant time and cooperative fish, we also got to fine-tune some of the skills Doug already had such as his hook setting technique, his jigging technique, and handling fish more efficiently during hook removal.

The fish activity mimicked the wind speed today with stronger winds bringing a stronger bite and so on. The fish actually fed, albeit lightly at times, all day today. At every stop our most productive method was vertical jigging with a 3/4 oz. TNT 180 slab in natural shad colors including silver and white very near the bottom. Fish were generally too sluggish to respond to an easing or a smoking retrieve.

We found fish at four different areas as follows:

Area 725 (BA:16T, 6RBG) — 64 fish including 62 white bass, 1 hybrid, and 1 yellow cat, all in 17-22 feet of water and all on slabs using a jigging technique.

Area 817 (BA:3RBG, 8T) – 16 fish, 2 keeper hybrid and a mix of short hybrid and white bass.

If you’re reading this and are contemplating a Christmas holiday fishing trip, please don’t delay in getting that on the books. The week either side of Christmas will offer great fishing due to high water temperatures, but availability will be limited due to advanced bookings.

Also, remember I do have gift certificates available.

I’m at:

Bob Maindelle

Holding the Line Guide Service

254-368-7411

www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

TALLY = 141 FISH, all caught and released.

Start Time: 7:30a

End Time: 2:45p

Air Temp: 48F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~55.4F

Wind: Winds were SE7 until noon when the began to slowly settle to near calm by 3p.